The Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris which left 130 dead could have been a lot worse if not for the alertness and diligence of a Muslim security guard who stopped one of the terrorists from entering the Stade de France, one of six locations attacked by terrorists sent by the Islamic State (ISIS).
At that time the stadium was packed with football fans, who included French President Francois Hollande, as they watched a friendly between world champions Germany and France.
Salim Toorabally, a Mauritian immigrant and a security guard at the stadium, was on his first shift when he accidentally came face-to-face with ISIS bomber Bilal Hadfi, 20, who arrived wearing a suicide belt covered in dark suit, NBC news reported.
Toorabally said he was manning a turnstile at Gate L when a young man he described as "baby-face'' and wearing dark jacket tried to tailgate a fan through the turnstile.
"He didn't have a ticket, so I stopped him," he said, according to the report. "I said, 'If you don't have a ticket, I'm not letting you in.'"
The 42-year old guard said the man insisted he was meeting a friend inside who had a ticket for him. But he did not buy his reasons.
Hadfi then grabbed his mobile phone and made some calls, said Toorabally, adding the man's behaviour became suspicious. When the young man attempted to get past another security guard he rushed to his position to warn his colleague.
The young man then disappeared into the crowd and after half an hour, Toorabally said, he heard an explosion. In the terrifying hours that followed, he heard two more explosions outside the stadium.
Later after helping people and those wounded evacuate to a safer place, he was interviewed by police who showed him photos of suspected ISIS members. One of the photos was that of the man he had accosted earlier for trying to sneak into the stadium. Toorabally then realised how close he had come to death.
"I didn't pay attention to this clothes, but I got a good look at his face."
Toorabally is dubbed as the hero of Stade de France, but he insists he is no hero and was only doing his job.
Going back to the scene, he said: "I felt a shiver down my spine. I felt sick. It was so shocking. I told myself that if I had let him in, I would have been an accomplice in the murder of all those innocent people. Hundreds more could have died.''
The night before he left for the stadium, Toorabally recalled that his daughter had warned him to be "extra careful'' because she was worried of an earlier bomb scare that had forced the German team facing off against the French team to evacuate their hotel.
Hadfi had planned to detonate his suicide belt inside the stadium, investigators said. The attack on the stadium was intended to be the horrifying centrepiece of the Paris attacks, given that the game was being televised to millions of viewers around the globe, IBTimes reported.
